Spontaneous Raman scattering from nitrogen is studied in high pressure gases. Collision frequency increases with increasing gas density, causing spectral lines to broaden due to pressure broadening and mix when the lines are strongly overlapped. Because spontaneous Raman thermometry is accomplished by fitting a simulated spectrum to an experimental spectrum, spectral models that neglect these collision-induced effects will lead to erroneous temperature inference. This work investigates the influence of high density on ro-vibrational spontaneous Raman scattering, which must be understood to obtain accurate thermometry in high pressure gases. The temperature profile through a flame front was measured at 1 atm, 3 atm, and 5 atm using spontaneous Raman scattering from nitrogen. The pressure broadening was measured for the anisotropic tensor component of spontaneous Raman scattering from room temperature nitrogen over the pressure range of 10 atm to 70 atm for three gas compositions: pure nitrogen, air, and nitrogen in argon. The unmixed line model was found to give good fits to the O and S branches for all pressures, which indicates that line mixing effects are not significant in the O and S branches over this pressure range. Using indirect experimental evidence, line mixing effects in the anisotropic component of the Q branch were inferred to be below the threshold set by the experimental spectral resolution at pressures up to 70 atm at room temperature. Assuming that the anisotropic Q branch lines mix like the isotropic lines was found to result in a small systematic error in the inferred temperature at flame temperatures, with the error increasing slowly with pressure. The bias can be removed by modeling the anisotropic spectrum separately from the isotropic spectrum. Line mixing effects should be included in the modeling of the isotropic component of the Raman spectrum, but can probably be neglected in the anisotropic component of the ro-vibrational spontaneous Raman spectrum of nitrogen.Aerospace Engineerin
